1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a method of and a device for increasing the yield of oil production in a process of producing bio-ethanol.
2. Description of the Related Art
In known bio-ethanol plants stillage of grains such as corn is processed in order to produce ethyl alcohol, or so called bio-ethanol. The process usually is a dry milling process in which the starch in the grains is fermented. The fermentation creates a by-product or waste product, the so called whole stillage. The whole stillage is separated into distillers wet grains and the so called thin stillage. The thin stillage contains oil and is usually evaporated to become concentrated syrup and added to the solid waste materials to be dried and used as a supplement animal feed.
New efforts of improving this process are made by continuously pumping the concentrated syrup into a sedimentation tank and separating statically a part of the oil which is contained in the concentrated syrup. However, the yield of oil to be received in this new process is low.
Accordingly, a need exists for a method of and a device for increasing the yield of recovering oil in a process of producing bio-ethanol.